Tramper recalls his own ordeal in the danger zone

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And this is what saved his life: a piece of string, a few packets of pasta and a break in the weather.

Screaming for help every hour, on the hour, for 15 days straight and a fierce will to survive were also likely to have upped the odds, the 69-year-old Christchurch postman says.

In February 2001, Mr Smith set out on a seven-day tramp from the northern end of the St James Walkway in the Lewis Pass area.

On day two, he accidentally and "carelessly" veered off course. While tramping through uncharted bush alone, his footing slipped. He rolled about 10 metres downhill and slammed into a rock, snapping his thigh bone.

Mr Smith was not carrying a cellphone or an emergency beacon activator to call for help.

It took him a few moments to clear his head and realise what needed to happen next. "It was water. I needed to find a water source to survive," he said.

Choosing to show, rather than explain, how he hauled his injured body toward water, Mr Smith slowly eased himself on to the floor of his Waltham home yesterday.

He tied a piece of string around his limp, right foot. He grimaced when he put the end of the string between his teeth to hold his leg steady.

He began shuffling backwards with his hands - "It went something like this, if I can remember it accurately," he said.

It took Mr Smith more than four hours to drag himself about 250m downhill to a "very small creek".

And this is where he lay for 15 days, waiting to be rescued.

Mr Smith was initially confident that he would be found, but as the days wore on his optimism waned.

"I thought, once they know I'm missing, they will easily find me. You want to believe someone will find you. You don't want to think that you're going to be waiting around until you die."

Within about a 10km radius of Mr Smith's resting place beside the small creek in the Blue Lake area, three men have died.

The bodies of two trampers who disappeared, one in the late 1990s and another in 2009, have never been found.

It is a dangerous slice of the Te Araroa Trail and Westpac rescue helicopter is a frequent visitor to the area.

However, Mr Smith downplays his story of survival and pins it mostly on unfettered good fortune.

The weather was mild, he had enough food to last him a week, he only injured his leg in the fall and it wasn't painful unless he tried to move it. "I achieved things I couldn't imagine I could do, but everything seemed far better off for me than I deserved," he said.